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Monthly Archives: September 2003

You always think that these are the kind of things that happen to other people, until it happens close to you. I went to the funeral service for Kali Sansone today, someone I saw practically everyday from kindergarten to 8th grade, but had not seen at all since.

Some people are lucky to live to an old age and have their accomplishments written about in history books, but for the rest of us, it’s about what we leave to the world through our children, and in those who remember us. Many people will remember and be inspired by Kali.

I don’t usually post this kind of personal stuff here, but I met up with some old friends and wanted to note that. If you’re Googling and find this site, send me an email. I’d be interesting in hearing about what you’ve been up to these last 12 years. :-)

“Huge interfaces squeezed through plodding modem connections have been a plague since the Web’s inception. The increasing dominance of broadband has only helped a bit. A hotel phone line plugged into a business traveler’s laptop may be the only tenuous link you’ve got to a new customer. Adopting clean, standardized code gives users a shortcut to accomplishing their goals at your site.”

And, in tribute to HotWired and the old school of web design, I present a list of things I miss from when the web was young:

The series finale of Futurama aired last month. It was a great show that ended too soon (thanks Fox execs). I had only seen a handful of episodes until last month, when I rented the first season disc 1 on NetFlix. I had forgotten how great the show was, so I bought the first season box set and ordered season 2, which I’ve been enjoying since.

The commentaries on the DVDs are some of the best I’ve ever seen. Completely unscripted, funnier than the episodes themselves in many ways.

Now that Fox has pulled the plug on the series, Futurama is enjoying a popular run on Cartoon Network. The fanbase is there, and there could be a movie version some day. But chances of Cartoon Network funding new episodes seems pretty slim, given the cost of each episode. Producer David Cohen has done a few interviews lately, here’s one.

I guess anything’s possible, since apparently a Family Guy movie is in the works as well [via BoingBoing]. I never watched the television show, but it had a shorter run than Futurama yet strong DVD sales.

I just received my copy of Fragments in the mail. It’s a great collection of sketches and paintings by Pixar story artists Ronnie Del Carmen and Enrico Casarosa. (Pixar, for those not paying attention, is the new Disney — where artists control the process, and good storytelling still means something.)

There’s a shift occurring in the animation and comic world, a change that favors independent artists. Fragments is self-published. So are Michel Gagne’s popular books. The RustBoy book should be out by the end of the month, and all indications point to great sales that will help fund the film. Countless comic artists are publishing sketchbooks, or moving their comics online. The other piece of the puzzle is the technology: producing an independent short film at home has never been more possible, if you’re willing to put in the work to see it through to completion.

Why does this matter? It enables artists to create what they want, if the audience is there. And it provides a personal touch that big companies can’t match, such as this little cat sketch from the Fragments mailing package.